


forgive me this truth inconvenient

by tuesday



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-01
Updated: 2014-07-01
Packaged: 2018-02-06 23:00:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1875744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tuesday/pseuds/tuesday
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Mad Baggins comments don't start right away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	forgive me this truth inconvenient

**Author's Note:**

> I don't usually post works in progress, because so often I a) write things out of order and b) don't complete a majority of the fic I begin. Like. My wip and dead fic folders, if I organized that way, would be full to overflowing. I am reasonably certain this fic will be finished someday, and even if not, I'm hoping each part will be cohesive and coherent and hold its own. That said, if the idea of reading a fic never finished horrifies you, this is not the fic for you. At least, not until all three parts are posted, and it's complete.
> 
> This work is book-based, but all my love for movie-fandom, too. Seriously, Peter Jackson's movie fic inspiring a billion more works, many devoted to my childhood OTP, has made me ridiculously happy.
> 
> All the thanks to rainuponthemoon and lizfu (who does not even go here) for putting up with my flailing about this fic and The Hobbit at them.

"I forgive you," Thorin tells Bilbo when the battle's over and he's been summoned to Thorin's side. It's almost enough to see him, injured, but alive. "I forgive you everything."

Almost.

Bilbo swallows convulsively. He thinks, with a sarcastic lilt, _Thank you_ , and, _That's nice_ , and, _I don't_. Thorin's hands reach for him, and Bilbo can't flinch away fast enough.

It was a mistake to come here.

"Burglar - " Thorin's voice is rough, his retreating hands unsteady.

"I believe my thieving days are behind me," Bilbo manages to choke out. "If that's all, I should leave you to your rest."

He's out of the tent before Thorin can contradict him. He doesn't stop moving until he's half the camp away.

\--

There was a time Bilbo believed he'd die alone, old in his bed at Bag End and well content with the soft, comfortable life he'd lived. Then thirteen dwarves came into his life, and he thought maybe, just maybe -

Now Bilbo knows he was right the first time. 

He'll die alone.

\--

The Mad Baggins comments don't start right away. 

Hobbiton takes his return in stride. Once he's cleared everyone out of his house and gotten (most of) his silverware back, the rumors start, but they're less, "What will Mad Baggins do next?" and more, "That Baggins, just like his mum. Adventure out of the way, who do you think he'll settle down with?"

Bilbo thought he was done with marriage proposals when he turned forty-five and Lobelia Bracegirdle finally settled on his cousin Otho. "But if you don't marry me," Lobelia had declared, a fire in her eyes, "you're not allowed to marry anyone."

Bilbo had given her a wry smile and said, "I wasn't planning on it."

Whatever she'd done before to cause the proposals to taper and dwindle away altogether, however, is no longer enough now that he's returned from his adventure with a troll's entire treasure hoard in hand.

\--

Before Gandalf and a company of thirteen dwarves intruded on his life, the worst of Bilbo's dreams were of cold and hunger, glowing eyes and sharp teeth in the dark. Now, he has a multitude of choices. Wargs and goblins and orcs, a pale creature hunched before him and Sting clenched tight in his fist. A beloved body at his feet, cherished hands wrapped around his throat. The din of a battlefield roaring in his ears and thrumming in his chest, blood and mud slick underfoot. 

He may not have a fourteenth Erebor's treasure, but Bilbo has plenty to remember his adventure by.

(Never mind most days Bilbo would rather forget.)

\--

It starts innocently enough. All of his neighbors and aunts and cousins wish to visit for tea and hear all about how one adventure was more than enough for him.

"No," Bilbo finds himself reassuring them all time and again, "I think I'm over adventures. I've seen my elves and much, much more." More than he'd wanted to, really. "Having seen the world, I'd say the Shire is the only place I wish to be."

In return, they all nod knowingly before filling him in on their own year past - who in the family has come to majority and who's married whom, the weddings and birthdays and parties he missed while out on the road. 

If they linger a bit on how this cousin of theirs and that niece or nephew remain single, such a shame, well - it is spring. It's practically a Shire tradition to talk of young romance. 

But Bilbo - Bilbo is not young. He has had his fill of romance.

\--

Bilbo takes to rising early. 

He has a routine. Each morning, he lies in bed, half-buried under his many pillows and just breathing, in, out, in, until pre-dawn's light edges his windows. He sheds his sweat-sticky night clothes in the hamper outside the master bathroom's door and washes quickly. By the time he's dressed, the sun has barely peaked over the horizon. 

Most days, he takes a cup of tea with him outside, where he can sit on his front bench. The scent of bergamot mingles pleasantly with Longbottom leaf, and he smokes pipe after pipe in the chill dawn air as he lets the tea grow cold. The dew of the grass is wet under his feet, the tips of it tickling dull at his arches. If he wishes, he can close his eyes and remember better times.

He can remember -

By the time the sun is overhead, Bilbo is resigned to the day.

\--

It's an embarrassment that Bilbo doesn't realize sooner. They're not subtle. 

When Aunt Linda visits, she says things like, "That Brockhouse girl wants to feed you up," and asks, "Are you accepting the Cotton boy's supper invitation, or the Smallburrows?" 

Her eyebrows raise when he tells her he plans to have them both over instead, but all she says is, "Definitely related to Gerontius, no doubt about it."

Still, it takes Amaranth Brandybuck climbing in his lap as she states, "One's good, but I think we can fill these halls with more, don't you?" for Bilbo to understand.

"Oh," Bilbo says, eyes wide and uncertain where to put his hands, because Amaranth's are everywhere. "Oh, no."

"You're that set on one?" Amaranth's pout is entirely too close to him. She is _undoing his belt_.

"Nope, nope, this is not," and finally Bilbo gives up all sense of propriety, as Amaranth has clearly abandoned it herself; he stands, dumping Amaranth to the floor, " _never_ going to happen."

\--

When Bilbo left with Gandalf, no one tried to stop him.

Bard had gifted Bilbo a grave tilt of his head. Thranduil raised one elegant eyebrow and turned away. Beorn had already returned home, but before he had, he'd thrown his arms around Bilbo and swung him in a joyous arc, all promises that Bilbo was welcome to visit any time.

Thorin - 

Bilbo tries not to think of it.

All that matters is that when Bilbo left with Gandalf, no one tried to stop him.

\--

Fortunately, the Brandybucks are all rather understanding when Bilbo marches Amaranth out of his smial, her ear pinched between his fingers like a young tween caught behind the party tree the first time.

"Told her forward wasn't the way to go," Rorimac confides later in the tones of an all-knowing older brother. "'Subtle,' I said. 'He may be part Took, but he's still a Baggins.' Don't you worry, Bilbo, you won't get that approach again."

Unfortunately, Bilbo thinks it's only because they're holding out hope for Saradas.

\--

Worse are the nights when his dreams are soft and warm as his bed. Calloused fingers card through his hair. A low voice promises braids with beads of finest gems, talks of bracelets to cradle Bilbo's wrists and rings like kisses on each knuckle. The hands against his neck are gentle, so very gentle.

Dreams lie as often as people. Bilbo knows this more than most. Dreams lie. 

But sometimes, terribly and too often, they speak truth.

\--

Saradas tries poetry - awful, awful poetry. A little literary criticism goes a long way in relieving Bilbo of his affections.

Bruno Bracegirdle, roses in hand and clearly feeling his tweens, says, "Let me worry about Lobelia." Said hobbit appears like a vengeful apparition and drags him away. Never has Bilbo been so glad to see Lobelia wielding her umbrella like an instrument of war.

Rufus Burrows says simply, "Always wanted to marry a Took, and you're more than Took enough for me. What do you say?"

Bilbo isn't sure how turning down Amaranth is an indication to the Shire at large that he has no interest in women, but he finds himself almost grateful for it. If only he could convince his fellow bachelors that he has no interest in them, either.

\--

In the end, Thorin had put all pride aside.

"I beg you." Kings didn't kneel, but Thorin was on his knees before him. "Burglar - Bilbo."

Thorin's voice had been muffled in the fabric of Bilbo's travel cloak, but in recollection, every word sounds clearly.

" _Please_."

(No one tried to stop him. Hands clutched at the fabric of his cloak were easy to peel away. No one tried to stop him. Bilbo left.)

\--

There is only so much one hobbit can take.

Bilbo has fended off seventeen marriage proposals and two - _two_ \- offers to be his live-in lover. His entryway is full of mathoms and more bouquets than he has vases to hold them. His appointment book is filled with grandmothers intent on him providing great-grandchildren, and he's taken to wearing his ring and hiding when people drop by unannounced. The question most put to him this month has been, "Do you think you'll want a summer wedding?"

Bilbo has hit his breaking point.

He piles up all the mathoms he's received since his return and a few more besides, then brings out the stationary. He writes out a list of everything he'll need for a welcome home party to end all parties. He writes another of every eligible hobbit he knows and every one of their many interfering relatives. He decides it won't be enough.

Bilbo invites the whole Shire.

\--

Part of the problem is that Bilbo came to expect too much.

He'd thought they'd come to do more than simply tolerate him. After wargs and mountains and dark forests, after starvation and privation and carrying one another through, he thought they were more than comrades - he thought they were friends. They'd seen wonders and survived horrors. Bilbo had fought with them and bled with them and nearly died with them. He would have died for them. (He nearly had.)

After all they'd been through, he'd thought Thorin's company had grown to like him, that he had the same room in their hearts they held in his. He'd expected too much. 

It's the only explanation for how he felt when Thorin lifted him over the battlements and only Gandalf tried to stop him.

\--

"No small gestures," Bilbo had told himself when labeling the invitations, and that's what he tells himself again as he stands at the door.

His hands are shaking. Sting lies heavy against his hip. His feet are unsteady. 

(Not every drink he'd downed had been to being unsuitable.)

He is in his second worst waistcoat, and he's still not sure it's enough.

"No small gestures."

Four hours late and three sheets to the wind, Bilbo lurches out the front door.

\--

Before he left, Bilbo went to see Thorin once more.

"It's not just you," Bilbo told Thorin. Bilbo was tired. Everything hurt. He wanted it all to be over. "It is, but not just you." Bilbo closed his eyes. "For what it's worth, I am sorry."

"As am I," Thorin said heavily, as though he hadn't already pleaded with Bilbo for his forgiveness.

Something floated sharp and loose in Bilbo's chest. His throat hurt. He couldn't breathe.

Reaching out, he could feel Thorin's shorn beard. Reaching up, he grasped Thorin's hair.

"What - " but Bilbo shook his head, covered Thorin's mouth with his free hand.

"Don't." Bilbo licked dry lips, didn't open his eyes. "Don't say anything. Let me - "

Thorin kissed Bilbo's palm, his wrist. He offered no protest when Bilbo tugged him down by his hair. He opened his mouth when Bilbo slotted their lips together. When Bilbo plucked at Thorin's shirt, Thorin helped peel it off. Thorin granted every request unspoken. 

For a long time, the only sounds were of their breathing, the shift of fabric, skin sliding against skin.

"Let me - " Bilbo had said.

Thorin let him. Thorin let Bilbo have everything he wanted.

And after it was over - when Bilbo was dressed for travel with a king knelt naked at his feet - after everything, Thorin let Bilbo go.

\--

"I am," Bilbo announces to the party at large, doling out mathoms without concern for whether once gift is to giver returned, "my mother's son."

Many of the older set seem scandalized by his inebriated - and worse, _late_ \- entrance, but the tweens and courting crowd are themselves deep in their cups, enough to forgive him his lapses or forget he hasn't been there all along. It's fine. Bilbo's not done.

"Did you know," he informs one of the younger Fairbairn girls, ignoring Lobelia's hand at his wrist, Otho's arm at his shoulder, "that elves and dwarves love but once? So, too, my mother."

A few lads and lasses look something like hopeful. Aunt Linda's countenance is solemn.

"I am my mother's son." Bilbo dumps his box of mathoms at the foot of the party tree. Let another sort them. "And none among you a proper Bungo Baggins makes."

\--

The invitations dry up after that - in their place, a spring of rumors.

Bilbo finds himself glad of it. For the first time in days, he has a moment to himself, no demands on his time but of his own making. He can write. He can think. Maybe, just maybe, he can learn to breathe again.

Bilbo is alone.

(But then, in that, nothing's changed.)

\--


End file.
